


Courage and Cowardice

by assassins_heir (lykxxn)



Series: Assassin's Heir-verse [not canon!] [3]
Category: Assassin's Heir, Original Work
Genre: Gen, PTSD, Pre-Slash, mutual getting-along
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 11:33:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6852916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lykxxn/pseuds/assassins_heir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niccolò and Cesare talk about who they were and who they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Courage and Cowardice

Niccolò was silent at the table as he sipped a coffee — always black, like his soul, Cesare had once said, half-jokingly —  a copy of  _Il Principe_ open about a quarter of the way through. It was well-loved and dog-eared, with a dried coffee stain over the left page.

“Morning, Machiavelli,” said Cesare conversationally, smirking and putting his own mug of coffee on the table.

Niccolò scowled, putting the coffee down. “Really, haven’t we grown out of such childish names?” he asked, fighting the urge to add a hissed  _Borgia_ to the end of the question.

“Not all of us,” replied Cesare sourly. “I recall your dear friend Orazio being childish to the bitter end.”

Niccolò frowned into his book. “Orazio is no friend of mine,” he admitted softly. “You never found out, but I refused to forgive him for what he did. He—he could have killed you that day, Cesare.”

“I was eager to blame him, though,” he replied. “I could have refused, and yet I did not. I should have sensed the danger.”

“We cannot all be as your mother says,” said Niccolò. “You are not perfect, and neither is anybody else. Least of all me. Orazio was egging you on, Cesare. If you had refused, I—I couldn’t tell you what he’d have done. There was no way you could have won.” He stared into his coffee in embarrassment. “I should have done something. But I was so, so frightened that I might—might lose my friends. My only friends; my only constant. And I am a coward for it.”

“Was,” said Cesare firmly.

“What?” Niccolò had a mingled look of surprise and confusion upon his pale face.

“You’re no coward. Or at least, not to me you’re not.” Cesare took a drink of coffee.  _Il Principe_ lay untouched on the table.

“Well, that’s very kind of you to say, but—”

“I’m not finished, you fool,” he said sharply, resisting the burning urge to sneer at the man. “You have gone rushing into battle without having to be told twice; I have seen a young boy turn into a mature fighter; I have seen you immediately volunteer for almost  _anything_ despite the risks, simply because it is for the goodness of our world. I do not call that cowardice. I call that  _courage_.”

Niccolò frowned in puzzlement. “I do not understand,” he said quietly.

“Just because you were a coward once, does not mean you still are. People can change.”

Niccolò swilled the coffee around in his mug. “Sometimes I wonder if that is true,” he admitted.

Cesare raised his eyebrows in thought. He remembered all too well the eleven-year-old pale-faced, black-haired boy who would frequent to the library simply to sit in a corner and read  _Il Principe_ over and over until he could quote the book word for word. “I have a question for you,” he said softly. “How did you come across that book?”

Niccolò grimaced, and for a moment Cesare wondered if he would refuse to answer. But he swallowed thickly, as if there was a lump of coffee stuck in his throat and said, “I found it in the library, and I read it. I was — what, ten? — and I didn’t understand it much. Would you? So I—I got a dictionary, and I told myself I would read it until I understood every word. Now it has become a constant source of comfort. If I cannot understand the world, there is at least one thing in it that I can understand inside and out.” He paused, taking a sip of coffee. “In that case, I have a question for you, too. Why don’t you call me by my name?”

Cesare winced. He had to admit, Niccolò was terribly blunt. “Because I do not deserve to,” he said softly. His eyes met the book guiltily, and he refused to build walls to hide it, because if there was any time to tell the truth and nothing but, it was now. “I have not exactly treated you with kindness.” That was an understatement, to say the least. “You do not need me poisoning a wonderful name such as yours. It is noble and good; all the things I am not.”

“You doubt yourself,” said Niccolò gently as he rose from his chair, taking both empty mugs as he did so. “You deserve much more than my name.”

Cesare sat in the dining room alone as Niccolò washed up the mugs. “Why do you care?” he asked, but there was nobody to hear nor answer. He rubbed at the stubble on his chin wonderingly. Where had he gone so wrong — and yet so right? The sound of water splattering in the sink filled his ears, and he ran his fingers absently across the table.

_You deserve much more than my name._

What did that mean? Offering him his name was one thing, but Niccolò would be a fool to offer his forgiveness. If Cesare knew anything, he knew facts and truth, and the truth was, he did not deserve to be forgiven.

Niccolò’s shoes made a  _tap-tap_ as he entered, and he sat down again. He picked up  _Il Principe_ but Cesare could tell that his mind was not on the words he was reading. “Why do you insist that you are unworthy and undeserving of a friend in this world? It has always piqued my curiosity, I must admit. I cannot understand why a man would deprive himself of such things.”

“I have made terrible mistakes, Niccolò,” said Cesare, the man’s name uneasy in his throat. “If I keep others at a distance, I can at least refrain from making them again.”

Niccolò’s eyes were soft and gentle when he looked at him. “Are you talking about Alerio Uccello?” he asked quietly.

Cesare’s eyes were hard and cold. His steely gaze did not leave Niccolò as he spoke. “I  _killed_ him.”

“Yes, you did.”

“His son, Giovanni — he was shaking her, shaking his mother and begging her to wake up.”

“Yes, he was.”

This time, Cesare’s voice shook. “She’s dead.”

“Yes,” said Niccolò regretfully, “she is.”

“I wasn’t fast enough.”

“He was a murderer, Cesare,” he said gently. “Alerio Uccello was a murderer. He murdered his wife and if you had not shot him then he’d have killed Giovanni, too.”

“I  _shot_ him.” Cesare wrung his hands under the table as they shook. There was no use hiding it. Niccolò already knew.

“Yes, you did.” Niccolò wanted Cesare to put his hands on the table, to show him just how much this was affecting him, but such walls as his were built so high it would be near impossible to tear them down.

But damn it, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try.

“That doesn’t make you a bad person,” said Niccolò before he could stop himself. “That shows a lot of courage. You could have gotten out of there, you know. Just ran for it. But you didn’t. You put a stop to Alerio Uccello. You did what needed to be done.”

“That doesn’t mean it was easy,” said Cesare, cursing himself as his voice shook.

“No,” he sighed, “no, it doesn’t.” He frowned deeply, lines creasing his forehead. “This has been on your mind for thirteen years — why have you not brought it up before?”

“I have,” and Cesare grimaced, “with my mother.” His hands seemed to have ceased trembling, and he put them back on the table. He drummed his fingers on the wood; the situation was horribly uncomfortable and unnerving and he showed it openly. What had hiding his feelings done for him? “She said I had done what needed to be done, but I still do not understand the motives for it. Why  _me_?”

“You were eighteen,” stated Niccolò, but his voice was soft and, much to Cesare’s disbelief, understanding. “It should not have been you, Cesare. It should not have been you. You were not ready to carry out that mission, especially not  _alone_. It was not your fault that you made a mistake, although I consider it an achievement, considering we’d been trying to put Alerio Uccello out of the picture for three months beforehand.”

“But why would my mother put me on the mission if I wasn’t supposed to be on it?” asked Cesare.

Niccolò winced. He was not one to shy from the truth, and he knew more than Cesare now—

“It must have been an accident,” Cesare said softly in an attempt to reassure himself.

“I assure you that it was no accident,” said Niccolò. “Your mother knew what she was doing when she volunteered you for that mission. I think she knew we would lose Claudia—” he swallowed the lump in his throat; he had not said Giovanni’s mother’s name, the name of the woman who had been like a mentor to him, in thirteen years and good God, it  _hurt_ , “—either way, and she wanted you to—to—”

It took him a few breaths to realise that he was lying through his teeth. Aurelia had not known they would lose Claudia. Aurelia had only volunteered Cesare for the mission because it would ‘unlock his potential’. Niccolò frowned. He doubted that was her true motive. Her son had always locked himself away. He had never once expressed fear or sadness, only anger and happiness. That wasn’t  _normal_. It was as if—

The truth hit Niccolò harder than a boulder could. Aurelia had  _trained_ Cesare to be the perfect soldier; she had not allowed him to display negative emotions; she had sent him on the Uccello mission without a second thought. Had she tried to  _break_ him?

“Cesare—” but Cesare had gone. Niccolò frowned. It was just like him to go disappearing in the middle of the conversation.

But Niccolò did not go after him. It was Cesare’s choice to make and he would not invade his privacy. 

But Niccolò thought. He thought about Alerio and Giovanni and Claudia; he thought about Cesare and Aurelia; he thought about himself.

He knew Cesare’s story. Maybe it was time for Cesare to hear his.

“Tell me what to do, Germano,” he murmured, but nobody answered, for Germano was as good as dead.

_Nobody else can tell me what to do. The only person who can do that is me._

Maybe now was a good time to start being a lion. He had courage, he just had to show it. He could start with forgiveness. He missed talking with Orazio, after all. What was done was done, and it had been twenty years since they had got on without hesitance.

Maybe Cesare could teach him a thing or two.


End file.
